Daily Mail
By Kate Dennett
The outlandish rumour that the wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, 68, was born a man has been circulating on social media in France under the hashtag #JeanMichelTrogneux.
The outlandish rumour that the 68-year-old wife of French President Emmanuel Macron was born a man has been circulating on social media in France under the hashtag #JeanMichelTrogneux.
The First Lady intends to initiate proceedings and file a complaint against the instigators of the conspiracy theory, according to Le Figaro.
The controversial theory was published in an extreme right-wing journal Faits et Documents in September, which claimed a three-year investigation supported by ‘many experts’ made the allegation, CNews reported.
The 12-page monthly journal, which has published a number of bizarre theories about public figures, reportedly accused the First Lady of being born a man called Jean-Michel Trogneux.
Natacha Rey, the journalist who is said to have investigated the claims, gave an interview about the theory to medium Amandine Roy that lasted nearly four hours on YouTube on December 10, according to Numerama. The video reached 470,000 views before it was deleted.
The ludicrous suggestion was then widely circulated on social media this month, with #JeanMichelTrogneux becoming one of the most discussed topics on French Twitter last week.
It was shared by a number of conspiracy and anti-vaxxer Twitter accounts, with more than 34,000 tweets using the hashtag.
It is not the first time that a woman has been the target of such theories, as similar absurd claims arose about the former US First Lady Michelle Obama in 2017.
The bizarre rumour has emerged just months ahead of the next French presidential election in April next year.
Opinion polls have so…
